Birthright Citizenship of Child Born to Enemy Alien Visitors
By John Vlahoplus and Michael L. Rosin
This short article is available here as 103 Wash. U. L. Rev. Online 57 (2025). It details the 1872 case of Mogridge v. United States, which found that a child born in the United States to visiting enemy alien parents was a U.S. citizen even though he also acquired their nationality at birth and left the country with them only a few weeks afterward. Mogridge’s citizenship deprived him of standing as a British neutral to claim damages against the United States under an Anglo-American treaty for business losses suffered during the Civil War.
Mogridge is the case that Rep. Robert S. Hale cited but did not name when he explained the breadth of constitutional birthright citizenship to the House of Representatives in 1874. After tracking down the case name and report we found that Mogridge was born to visiting British parents during the War of 1812, that the United States successfully asserted his citizenship, and that Hale was counsel to the United States in the case. This compelling precedent from only four years after ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment joins a long list of other authorities demonstrating the unconstitutionality of President Trump’s Executive Order purporting to limit constitutional birthright citizenship.
Posted at 6:22 AM